The Atlanta Flames were a professional ice hockey team based in Atlanta, Georgia from 1972 until 1980. They played out of the Omni Coliseum and were members of the West and later Patrick divisions of the National Hockey League (NHL). Along with the New York Islanders, the Flames were created in 1971 as part of the NHL's conflict with the rival World Hockey Association (WHA). The team enjoyed modest success on the ice, qualifying for the post-season in six of its eight seasons, but failed to win a playoff series and won only two post-season games total. The franchise struggled to draw fans, and after averaging only 10,000 per game in 1979-80, was sold and relocated to Alberta to become the Calgary Flames.

1972-1975

The Flames made their NHL debut in Long Island against their expansion cousins, the New York Islanders, on October 7, 1972. They won the game 3-2; Morris Stefaniw scored the first goal in franchise history and the first NHL goal in Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.[10] The team made its home debut one week later on October 14. Hosting the first event in Omni Coliseum history, the Flames tied the Buffalo Sabres, 1-1, before a sellout crowd of 14,568.[11] The team was respectable through much of the season on the strength of Bouchard and Myre's goaltending performances,[12] and by mid-January, had a 20-19-8 win-loss-tie record. The Flames won only five more games through the rest of the season, finishing at 25-38-15.[13] Atlanta finished in seventh place in the West Division and missed the playoffs.[14] The team was reasonably successful at the gate: it sold nearly 7,000 season tickets by the start of the season,[15] and averaged 12,516 fans per game.[16]

The NHL's expansion to 18 teams in 1974-75 resulted in realignment. The league moved to a four division format, placing the Flames in the Patrick Division.[22] Lysiak repeated as the Flames' top scorer with 77 points while Eric Vail, playing his first full season, led with 39 goals.[23] Vail's total led all rookies and earned him the Calder Trophy.[24] The team overcame an eight-game losing streak in December and injuries to several key players to post their first winning season with a 34-31-15 record.[25][26] However, they finished fourth in the Patrick Division and failed to qualify for the post-season.[14] Citing personal reasons, Geoffrion resigned as head coach late in the season. He was replaced with Fred Creighton, who had been coaching the Flames' minor league affiliate, the Omaha Knights.[27] Fletcher later credited Geoffrion's outgoing personality as being the primary reason why people in Atlanta followed the Flames in the franchise's first seasons while the team's players later stated an appreciation for Creighton's more technical coaching and teaching style.[3]

1975-1980

Creighton produced a consistent, but not outstanding team, as the Flames finished third in the Patrick for the following three seasons and typically won a few games more than they lost each year.[28] The team qualified for the playoffs all three years, but lost in the preliminary round each time.[14] In 1975-76, they were defeated by the Los Angeles Kings in a best of three series 2 games to 0. The Kings again eliminated the Flames in 1976-77, but Atlanta earned its first playoff victory in franchise history in the second game of the series.[20] Vail scored the game-winning goal in a 3-2 victory over the Kings on April 7, 1977,[29] but the Flames were eliminated in the third game.[20]1975 draft pickWilli Plett emerged as a young star for the Flames. He scored 33 goals in his rookie season of 1976-77 and won the Calder Trophy.[30]

Seeking to improve his team's fortunes, Fletcher made several moves over the following seasons to rework the Flames roster. His goaltending tandem of Bouchard and Myre had begun to feud with each other by the 1977-78 season as both sought more playing time. Fletcher responded by naming Bouchard his number one goaltender and trading Myre to the St. Louis Blues for three players. They made it into the playoffs again but were the only team to fall to a team with fewer points than them, the Detroit Red Wings, in a best-of-three series, 2 games to 0.[31] In March 1979, Fletcher completed an eight player trade that sent franchise-leading scorer Tom Lysiak and four players to the Chicago Black Hawks for three players, led by defenseman Phil Russell.[32] Fletcher hoped that the addition of Russell would help his team achieve playoff success.[33]

Buoyed by a franchise record ten-game winning streak in October 1978,[26] the 1978-79 Flames posted the best record in their Atlanta years at 41-31-8.[14]Bob MacMillan, acquired in the Myre deal, became the first Flame other than Lysiak to lead the team in scoring in six years and, along with Guy Chouinard, was one of the first two Flames' players to score 100 points in one season.[14][34] Chouinard also became the team's first 50-goal scorer.[35] MacMillan won the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy that season as the NHL's most gentlemanly player.[36] In the playoffs against the Toronto Maple Leafs, Atlanta again failed to win a game as they lost a best of three series 2 games to 0.[20]

Fletcher continued to alter his team's make-up throughout the 1979-80. Al MacNeil replaced Creighton as head coach prior to the season,[37] and the team acquired Swedish star Kent Nilsson following the demise of the WHA. Nilsson led Atlanta in scoring with 40 goals and 53 assists.[38] At the 1979 NHL Entry Draft, Fletcher selected four players - Paul Reinhart, Jim Peplinski, Pat Riggin and Tim Hunter - who would ultimately become regulars in the Flames line up.[39] However, while the Flames again qualified for the playoffs in 1980, they again lost in the first round, losing a best-of-five series to the New York Rangers three games to one.[20]

Relocation

The Calgary Flames recognize their tenure in Atlanta by using the "Flaming A"' logo to denote alternate captains, as seen here on Dion Phaneuf.

As the team stagnated on the ice, the Flames struggled at the gate. They peaked at an average of 14,161 fans per game in their second season, 1973-74, but fell to 12,258 three years later and then 10,500 in 1977-78.[26] Concerns that low attendance could result in the relocation of the team surfaced by 1976, prompting politicians and the players themselves to purchase tickets in a bid to stabilize the franchise.[40] The Flames attempted to boost attendance in 1980 by signing Jim Craig, goaltender of the American Olympic team that had won the Olympic gold medal following its "Miracle on Ice" victory over the Soviet Union.[41] It was not successful as attendance fell to an average of 10,024.[26] Adding to the Flames' financial woes was the fact that the Omni Coliseum was one of the last major arenas in North America to be built without revenue-generating luxury suites, which led Fletcher to describe the facility as being "out-of-date when it opened".[3]

Cousins announced that he was seeking to sell the club following the Flames' exit from the playoffs;[42] Their final game, a 5-2 loss, was played in Atlanta on April 12, 1980.[43] He claimed to have suffered significant financial losses on the team while low viewership hampered his ability to sign a television contract.[42] The Flames, estimated to have lost $12 million in its eight years, had been rumored for months to be moving to Calgary, though Dallas and Houston were also mentioned as possible destinations.[44]

The Seaman brothers, Daryl and Byron, had made an offer of $14 million while the City of Calgary prepared to build a new arena for the team.[45] However, Canadian businessman Nelson Skalbania emerged as a rival bidder for the team before joining the Calgary consortium. The group agreed to purchase the Flames for $16 million, at the time the highest price ever paid for a National Hockey League franchise.[46] The sale was announced on May 21, 1980, and the franchise relocated to Canada where it became the Calgary Flames.[47] The Flames have since used the Atlanta logo for both its alternate captains,[48] and the team's former affiliate that played in the American Hockey League, the Adirondack Flames.[49]

The last active Atlanta Flames player in the NHL was Kent Nilsson, who played his final game in 1995. Several former players of the team returned to Atlanta once their careers ended.[50] Among them, Tom Lysiak operated a horse farm outside the city,[51] Eric Vail returned to operate a nightclub,[52] and Willi Plett operated a sporting theme park and golf course.[30]

Notable personnel

Team captains

Award winners

Three members of the Flames were named recipients of NHL awards during the team's tenure in Atlanta. Eric Vail was the first, as he won the Calder Memorial Trophy as the top rookie in 1974-75 after scoring 39 goals and finishing with 60 points.[55] Paraguayan-born Willi Plett won the award two years later after scoring 33 goals and 23 assists in his first full NHL season.[56] Bob MacMillan was named the league's most gentlemanly player in 1978-79, which earned him the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy. He finished fifth overall in league scoring with 104 points while accruing only 14 penalty minutes throughout the season.[57]

Hockey Hall of Fame

There are three members of the Atlanta Flames organization to be enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Cliff Fletcher, a native of Montreal, began his career in hockey management as a scout for the Montreal Canadiens in 1956 and rose to the position of assistant general manager with the St. Louis Blues before being hired in 1972 as the inaugural and lone general manager of the Atlanta Flames. Fletcher remained with the organization for another 11 years following its transition to Calgary and was the architect of the franchise's lone Stanley Cup championship, in 1989. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2004 as a builder.[59]

Pat Quinn played with the Atlanta Flames from 1972 to 1977 was inducted as a builder for coaching various teams around the league. The Flames first coach Bernie Geoffrion was also inducted into the player category in 1972, the same year he joined the Flames organization.

No Flames alumnus has been inducted into the Players Category.

Scoring leaders

These are the top ten scorers for the franchise during its time in Atlanta.[53]

Readers of erotic romance are in for a treat in the first book of Flame Arden's Atlanta Burning Series about three financially secure sisters looking for love and finding it, sometimes in the wrong place.

In 'And You, Virginia, Are No Lady', the middle sister, Virginia, needs the help of Gabriel Count, a man from her past who is now a successful private investigator, to help her find proof her client did not embezzle company funds.

She had a crush on Gabe in high school but turned down a prom date with him because her father would never have allowed his daughter to go out with the school bad boy.

Gabe wants nothing to do with lawyers, but is forced to accept Virginia's generous offer of employment to pay for his ailing mother's care. This former detective on the Atlanta Police Force resigned after a near-fatal gunshot. sent him to the hospital and then rehab for three painful months while the gunman walked on a technicality.

While Virginia still wants Gabe, she has no intention of satisfying her erotic dreams about him until he sweeps her away to dinner on the back of his Harley to discuss the case. They agree on the terms of his employment and she ends up straddling him in her bed.

Knowing she wears sexy thongs beneath sedate suits while she addresses the jury if an unbelievable turn-on for Gabe, but he can't get his prim and proper lade friend in bed again without leaving town with her, which he does at every opportunity.

Her family ranks so high on the social ladder this bad boy from her high school days is certain nothing will come of their sexual fling, but he plans to enjoy the comfort of Virginia's lush body as long as he can, which she turns into eternity.

"For, Lo! We live in an Iron Age--In the age of Steam and Fire!" wrote a poet mesmerized by the engines that were transforming American transportation, agriculture, and industry during his lifetime. Indeed, by the nineteenth century fire had become America's leitmotif--for good and for ill. "Keeping the flame" was deadly serious: even the slightest lapse of attention could convert a fire from friendly ally to ravaging destroyer. To examine the cultural context of fire in "combustible America," Margaret Hazen and Robert Hazen gather more than a hundred illustrations, most never before published, together with anecdotes and information from hundreds of original sources, including newspapers, diaries, company records, popular fiction, art, and music. What results is an immensely entertaining and encyclopedic history that ranges from stories of the tragic "great fires" of the century to fire imagery in folktales and popular literature. Dealing more with technology than with fire in nature, the book provides a vast amount of information on fire manipulation and prevention in urban life. Hazen and Hazen discuss the people who worked with fire--or against it. Founders, gaffers, blacksmiths, boilers at saltworks, and housewives knew how to "read" a fire and employ it for their purposes. A few dedicated investigators inquired about the scientific nature of heat and flame. And firefighters gradually progressed from "bucket brigades" to "using fire to fight fire" with the newly invented steam engine. The colorful stories of these Americans--the risks they took and the rewards they received--will fascinate not only social historians but also a broad audience of general readers.

Originally published in 1992.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Liberty Flames Hats Are 100% Nylon Material.Sweatband Performance Keeps Your Head Dry By Drawing Moisture Away From Your Skin.Adjustable Head Band Assures A Perfect Fit.And The Items Have Undergone Extensive Quality Control Before Reaching You.If There Is Anything We Can Do For You,please Kindly Contact Us.